


rush

by universe93



Series: Bruinshark Prompts [2]
Category: Actor RPF, American (US) Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Second Person, San Diego Comic-Con, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 15:11:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12083646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universe93/pseuds/universe93
Summary: In your mind, you were both in the same room again, his hand on your leg, laughing about something stupid. In real life, you just wanted him with you. Come back, be here.And then he did.A 2014 Seth/reader fic from Tumblr set at San Diego Comic-Con





	1. Chapter 1

Saturday was a private plane.

It had been a crazy few weeks for your boyfriend. Crazier for you, calling him your boyfriend. It had been three weeks since you’d seen him off in the same place, three weeks he’d spent in Boston, scheduling, rewriting, and planning. He called you every day with the details. Too much arguing with Alec, he said, too much heat, but not like Albuquerque. You sat in your crappy summer housing and missed him too much. In your mind, you were both in the same room again, his hand on your leg, laughing about something stupid. In real life, you just wanted him with you. Come back, be here.

And then he did.

You can’t really remember seeing him walk off the plane. You just ran to him when he did. It’s strange to see someone on a screen, a big one, a small one, hear their voice in the middle of the night, to take those weird dimensions and make them into a person underneath your hands. They turn into someone who walks off a plane and grabs you, holds on tight, and says “hi” like it’s nothing. Like he never left at all.

You sat with him in the tiny private airport, the plane refueling outside, his hand on your knee when he wasn’t flicking through papers and sending emails on his phone. He was back from Boston and you’d be in San Diego for two days of Comic-Con before you both went back. You to college, he to filming, for months and months. You tried not to think about the hours or the days. You tried to remember the last time you were here instead, the memory humming away in the back of your mind. For reasons beyond the fact this was the one of the few places in LA you could hold his hand.

“How much do you still have left to do?” You were curled up on the seat, facing him, trying to remind yourself he was there. He’d taken everything you thought you knew about yourself and switched it all around. And then he’d found the good things and made them better. All in stupid hotel rooms, a premiere party, a lookout by a river. Anywhere places just like this.

“We’re still finalizing some locations,” he sighed, like it wasn’t fun at all. “And Alec apparently thinks right now is a really great time to rewrite half the script. If I used reverse psychology and told him the entire script is fucked, do you think he’d stop sending me revisions?”

“He’d probably send you more,” you smiled. It was surreal. He’d been gone for so long, and now he was here, and soon he’d be gone again.

“You know what, I don’t know why they’re trusting locations to a comedy writer. They’ll be lucky if this doesn’t turn into Ted 2: They Sit in a Field.”

"Wasn’t that your last movie?”

“Oh, ha ha ha.” He rubbed his eyes, slouched down, rested a hand on your knee. You held it with yours, not wanting to let go.

“I wouldn’t call you just a comedy writer anymore,” you pointed out, resting your head on your hand. “I mean, you’re directing your third movie.”

He shrugged slightly, like the whole thing was neither here or there. You had to stifle your own laugh when the joke came into your head.

“What?” he smiled, flopping the papers down on his lap.

“To be a comedy writer you have to actually be funny.”

“Argh,” he smiled, tilting his head back for a moment as you laughed. Your eyes searched the outline of his neck, his profile, every part of his face for a just a moment. He looked back at you and grinned in the momentary silence. “Of course I’d walk right into that one.”

It hit you as soon as he finished the sentence. Those dark eyes stared at you with that small smile and didn’t look away. It was like an ache in your chest, warm pins and needles, not being able to sit still. Like waking up and seeing him lying beside you. Something amazing and terrifying, all at once. One more than the other.

He opened his mouth in the silence, like he was about to speak, and closed it again. Things like that kept happening. Like words got stuck in the back of his throat just long enough for him to think better of them. The scary part was you knew exactly what they were.

“What?” you asked him lightly as he looked away, moving your hand to his shoulder. He reached out and rested a hand on your knee.

“Nothing,” he smiled. “I’m just glad to get out of here with you.”

You let your eyes wander out the window for a moment, to the plane sitting on the tarmac. You felt the breeze from the open door, the same way you’d felt it the last time you were here. The words echoed in your head. Please don’t walk away.

You decided to stop thinking about it and jumped up, holding out your hand. “Come on. Let’s go over-tip someone ‘til they let us board.”

He grabbed his work and took your hand, and you held it tight, all the way to the plane.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, you were in the air.

Seth sat across from you, headphones in his ears, a book in his hand. Your legs were touching on the footrest between you. You put your own book on your lap and stared at him for a moment. You wondered why you were here when no one else was, and how it felt so comfortable.

He looked up from his book, and pulled out an earphone. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you smiled back. You thought about how long you’d been waiting for this, you and him, together in the same place. You tried not to think at all.

“You know how much I missed you when you were gone?” You said it like it was a fact, something no one could take from you. He smiled a small smile, a warm one that made you glad just to be who you were.

“Me too,” he answered as he breathed out. He tilted his head and suddenly squinted like you were someone he didn’t know. “I’m sorry, who are you again?”

It takes time to laugh. It takes less to throw a bag of peanuts at him. He grinned at you, and it made you want to live on that plane, go everywhere with him, maybe go to Boston. Instead, you shifted back into your seat. He kept his eyes on you until he opened his book and moved them back to the page. You kept yours on him for longer, until the moment drifted away.

* * *

Saturday was a hotel room.

Seth had been tired since he arrived. As he’d walked up to you at the airport you couldn’t refuse to notice the bags under his eyes, how pale he was. You couldn’t pretend he wasn’t slouching in his seat and rubbing his eyes every five seconds. He opened the door to the hotel room and let you inside without a word. It took him only a few minutes to lie down on the bed exhausted. These are the things you’re going to remember, you thought, as you lay down beside him. These are the moments you’ll tell nobody about, the ones you’ll think of later, when you’re all alone and he’s too far away.

“I hate jet lag,” he mumbled. Boston was only 6 hours away, 3 hours off, 2000 miles and too many states. You mapped it all in your head for a moment, for the months he’d be there when you were here. “Where am I again?”

“Who knows?” You watched every part of him drift off to sleep, slowly then all at once. He’d apologize when he woke up, for not paying you enough attention or leaving you to explore on your own. You could hear his voice in your head: fuck, sorry, we haven’t eaten lunch yet. That weekend was a convention, a whole heap of people excited about it. And yet you were happy in one room.

You stared at him and tried to imagine going back to school and hearing everyone talk about their summer. They’d all tell you how much fun they’d had back home, the boys they swore were special. You’d be able to smile, and nod, and think: they have no idea.

* * *

Sunday was a press line.

The Comic-Con logos littering the wall made it look like a big book of stamps. That’s the stupid things you think when you’re doing something this bizarre. You got to say hello to everyone from “Family Guy”, all in the same space, talking about a Simpsons crossover, the eventual movie, the next season. They moved down a long production line of interviewers, with authentic smiles and answers they had to pretend weren’t rehearsed. You sipped your water and watched from the corner as Seth nodded and smiled, making sure everyone felt like they mattered.

And then someone tapped you on the shoulder. You turned around and saw Seth’s smile and eyes, but it’s someone else. Rachael. You didn’t know what to say.

“So you’re the girl I’ve heard so much about,” she smiled, and your mind went blank.

“I’m something,” you answered, all you could think of. “I’m sorry we haven’t met yet, it’s so nice to meet you.”

You didn’t know what to say to someone who played such a big role in his life. But she just rested a hand on your arm with a smile and told you she’s really sorry too, because Seth talks about you all the time, and your heart seized up. Maybe it was the same for him. Maybe he felt the same way you did when you looked at him, warm pins and needles, an ache in the pit of your chest.

You talked to Rachael for a while, little words back and forth. You paused for a moment, and then she said it. “I’m glad Seth’s found someone he really cares about. You’re good for him.”

You looked across the room at Seth, speaking to the last interviewer. His eyes darted over to you and it was an unspoken connection across a crowded room. An understanding. You’d doubted yourself and felt stupid waiting for him. You’d felt stupid for thinking someone so important might be distracted by thoughts of you, might miss you as much as you miss them. And yet there he was, looking at you, a private moment in a public room. The feeling hit you again and you knew it was real. The fear wasn’t that. It was that he didn’t feel the same rush when he saw you, like you’re like anyone else in a room.

You tried not to make too much of it. You both hugged Rachael goodbye instead, and you took his hand when he held it out to you. You walked outside to a crowd of people and stood back while he drew a hundred Stewies. You thought you could do that for the rest of your life.

* * *

Sunday was a convention.

Comic-Con was like nothing you’ve seen before. It’s like nothing anyone has seen before, you thought, as you took the time he spent in the green room before the panel to wander the building, peek into the halls, marvel at the lines outside and in. Thousands of people in one room, all here for one thing, different things. For many of them, it was the most fun they’d ever had. You didn’t judge them. People find their fun wherever it lies - a panel room, a comic book store, a costume, a TV show. The next movie in the Marvel franchise, the new Doctor Who, the old Firefly characters in a new game. For a lot of people its Tatiana Masleny saying girls can do anything, Robert Downey Jr throwing roses to the crowd, Mischa Collins bringing people coffee in an apron. Maybe meeting someone you never thought you’d see away from a screen. That’s Seth to you, sometimes, still. An enigma you happened to know, a strange place that felt so comfortable.

You don’t judge anyone for anything here. Even if you know they’d judge you, a wrecked college girl with Seth Macfarlane. You must have looked like another girl in the crowd, but you weren’t. You were someone who finds her fun with him in a bed. Though you admit it’s also fun being there for “Women Who Kick Ass”.

The panel hall was filled already when you sat down, your pass getting you a seat in the front row. Prime real estate, you thought, looking over your shoulder at the crowd. You learned that Comic-Con doesn’t clear the hall between panels, that if someone from a screen isn’t appearing until the end of the day, you have to sit and wait. The last panel in that hall was Doctor Who, and there’s people in long coats and scarves, holding sonic screwdrivers. Seth will laugh, you thought, taking questions from these people. You wondered if the mayonnaise guy would make a reappearance.

Seth walked out, and smiled at you, and the questions kept on coming. Mostly about the Simpsons crossover, the next season, the same types of questions he’d told you the press asked just before. It didn’t occur to you to ask if they screen the audience questions at Comic-Con. You wish you did. Someone stood up and a person with a microphone ran to them, and you had a bad feeling, for no reason at all.

“Yeah, this is for Seth: are you disappointed with how badly A Million Ways did at the box office? And is Ted 2 going to be any better?”

You turned your head so fast to look at him your hair got in your face. You watched as he looked down at the desk for a moment and forced out a laugh, like it was nothing. You’d talked about this before. You’d told him a hundred times not to listen, to be proud of himself. It doesn’t matter, you realized. There would always be people like that, and they’d sound louder than you.

The producers tried damage control, deflecting, saying it’s not in the scope of the panel. But Seth straightened up and answered. “We made the movie we loved, and now we’re going to make another one. Thanks.”

People clapped, and so did you. He stared down at the table, the smile disappearing from his face, and you wondered if there was anything anyone could do to make him believe he was good enough. You wondered if this would be the rest of your life, at his side, outrunning criticism and nastiness, only to face it again.

The minute the panel ended, you swept your way backstage and found him. He hugged you tight, and spoke before you could. “It’s fine. Fuck that guy.”

You hold his hand, hold his arm with your other one. You try your best to stay with him, all the way back to the hotel.

* * *

Sunday was a hotel bed.

You hadn’t said much in the two hours since the panel. Normally you never tried to fill the air with so many words like other people, but he was quiet for him. He opened the door to your room again, let you go in first, and you still didn’t have words. There weren’t any words when you looked at him. There weren’t any words to make him feel okay.

He tried talking, anyway. Like he’d do anything to make you feel comfortable. “So I was thinking we could-“

"Stop talking,” you told him, and kissed him hard. Make him feel better, you brain told you, though you couldn’t. Be with him before he’s gone. He sat down on the bed, pulling you by the hand to straddle him. You shifted in, ground your hips down, and kissed him again. He felt like your home town, your street, your bedroom. A safe place to return where nothing was wrong and everything could wait until morning. It was hard to picture yourself graduating, getting a job, going on exchange; you couldn’t imagine yourself becoming whatever person that life required. Yet it was easy to picture yourself with him. Maybe because you didn’t need to be anyone else. You had to be you, and he’d think you were beautiful.

Your breath was just beginning to escape you as you unbuttoned his shirt, piece by piece, until he pulled yours over your head. You fumbled with your clothes until his lips were on your neck and his hands were unbuttoning your jeans. In one movement, he flipped you on to your back, kissing you hard, moving his way down your body bit by bit.

You couldn’t think of anything else now, the warmth and blood all shifting to the same place. You tried to breathe as his hands pulled off your jeans, moved up your legs, spread them apart. It was hard when his hands teased you on the outskirts. It was impossible when his tongue shifted around you, in the right places. You had to thunk a hand against the headboard, had to groan, had to arch against the bed. You had no control. Everything you felt about him rushed through you all at once.

He kept going, moving, shifting, until you knew you were too close to not have him inside you. And in awkward movements you shifted until you were on top of him, guiding him inside you, watching him gasp and swear the same way you had. You kissed him again and he broke away to look at you. And all at once something shifted in your mind, something that seemed far away but was closer to you than him. The way you felt raced through your mind just like the blood and warmth through your body. He opened his mouth to say something through his own breathing and you knew what it was, how much it had to hide.

“Don’t,” you gasped, trying to hold every piece of yourself together. It took all the self-control you had to stay still, to not move for just a moment. Your whole body felt on the edge of something, like you were about to explode, but somehow your mind felt even more. “Don’t.”

He listened, and moved, and suddenly it was like stars like a blackout, like feeling everything all at once. Every part of your body seized up and you couldn’t think of anything but how good it felt, the warmth, the rush. And then it was over and you were lying on a bed, trying to remember how to breathe again. He lay across from you, doing the same. Usually you’d talk, or laugh, or go back for it again. But this time he stared at you, put a hand on your face, and you knew what was coming. It was becoming too much. One of you was going to say it to the other and you’d feel that shift, a change you can’t take back. And then he’d be gone.

You made a decision in a split second, through a pounding heart and no breath.

“Don’t ruin this,” you told him quietly, looking at his hands, like it meant nothing. He listened and watched you for a moment, quiet and serious, and you saw the change in his eyes. Disappointment that he couldn’t say it. Or fear that he hoped he could.

You kissed him after a moment, climbed out of bed and walked to the bathroom. You looked at yourself in the mirror for a moment, smoothed your hair off your face. You looked the same as you did before you met him. You felt the same. But you had to let out a shaky breath when you realized what was different. It was like knowing you were injured somewhere, that blood is flowing from your body, but you’re too scared to look at the wound. Even if it worsens the longer you wait, even if it kills you. You splashed some water on your face and looked yourself straight in the eyes. Don’t ruin this before you tell him.

A minute later, you lay down beside him. You tried to think of nothing, and everything, and how much you felt. You let his hand settle on your leg as you fell asleep.

* * *

Monday was a private plane.

You were distracted by your own thoughts as you walked with him through a business airport, for private planes and corporate flyers. You’d see him off and he’d be gone. You would be too, when they bussed you to the main airport for your flight back to LA. Back to college and classes, a single room, people your own age who’d never be the same as him.

He asked you all the normal questions to fill the space, whether you had your booking reference for the plane, whether you could make it to dorms okay. His plane sat on the tarmac and the wind from the open door blew your hair over your face. He stared at you, put a hand on your face, like electricity in the night. You couldn’t think of anything but how long he’d be gone, even if he’d fly here and you’d fly there in the meantime. Then his lips were on yours and you felt everything. Pins and needles from head to toe, every memory of all of it. The party, Paris, taking a risk at an airport. In a split second you took another one.

“I love you.” He was still pulling away as you said it, his face inches from yours, and you saw it change. Every feature softened, his dark eyes filled with something you couldn’t define. You had the feeling, for a moment, that you’d ruined the best part of your life with the truth. You’d said it too soon, or too late, and broken all of it into pieces. You could feel your heart pounding so hard it almost broke.

He opened his mouth to say something, and this time he didn’t stop.

“I love you, too.”

His voice sounded the same as it always did. The same voice you heard down the phone at night, the one in your head when you missed him. But it sounded different this time. It flooded your chest and made it hard to breathe. The warm pins and needle, the ache, the rush, it all came back. He loved you. Not like anyone else. He loved you. And now he was standing there, maybe scared, waiting for you to do something.

“Okay,” you told him breathlessly, and in one movement threw your arms around his shoulders and kissed him with everything you had. His arms snaked around your waist and held you as close as he could. You knew you’d made it. From where to where, you weren’t sure, but you’d made it. There was no uncertainty anymore, only reassurance. You’re here, you’ve made it, and nothing can hurt you.

It still hurt to let him go, to see him board that plane. It hurt to know he’d be a voice again for a time, an image on a screen. But things were different now. You knew a part of you would never be without him, that you’d always be around in the back of his mind. It was enough to fill the ache in your chest as the plane took off into the distance, trailing its way through a blue sky.

That’s how you make peace with all of it. That’s how you live the rest of your life.


	2. deleted scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cut this scene out for length but thought I'd include it here!

Saturday was lunch on a southern California marina.

These were the type of things you imagined you’d do every weekend when you went to college. Swimming at the beach, long lunches, a life where it’s summer every day. You severely underestimated how much finals, papers, dorm rooms and dining halls would take over your life instead. And yet here you were, like some kind of dream you made up.

You watched the boats, the sunlight twinkling on the water, the glass of stupidly expensive water sitting in front of you. Seth, sitting across from you, and the rest didn’t matter. You wondered when it all started coming down to him. Maybe that was a dangerous thing, or maybe watering your world down to the important things was what you should be doing. It all seemed useless to wonder when he stared at you like that.

You sighed, staring at the table, playing with the tablecloth. There was no way not to think about all the days he’d be away, a weight on your mind. You tried to focus on the view over his shoulder as a boat left a dock and sailed away. “We’re gonna have to talk about the rest of it eventually, you know.”

“I know,” he told his Jack quietly, and you looked down at your hand lying there on the table. Suddenly his reached over and covered it. You met his eyes and fell all over again. “But I’m not just gonna forget about you the minute I get back to Boston. You know that.”

You had to smile. Paris sat at the back of your mind, all those months ago. How could anyone forget about you?

“We’re just not gonna see each other for a long time. And I feel like such a kid going back to class when you’re shooting a fucking movie,” you sighed. The wind blew your hair about, the sun warm on your skin. You made a mental note in the sunshine to hang on to these moments, when you felt so centered and honest and right. Part of you was still convinced everything would end.

“You’ve obviously never shot a movie,” he answered dryly, and you had to laugh a little. You felt suddenly awkward, sitting and staring, so you got up and walked past him to lean on the railing. The view was gorgeous, and you pretended not to notice as he came up beside you. You arms touched as he leaned next to you.

“I’m not exactly…used to the idea of someone waiting for me back in LA,” he offered, and you didn’t look at him. “But I promise I’m coming back."You were about to tell him you knew that, when he went on. "You just…tell me what I have to do to make you believe that.”

You sighed as he turned to you, moved the hair off your face. You thought you could live in that moment, you and him in the sunshine, pretending the rest of it didn’t matter. It did, of course. All of it did. You ran your hand down his arm to take your hand, half concealed between you, and said all you could.

“I’ll let you know,” you smiled. You would have kissed him, if you weren’t in public, another item on the list of things you wished you could do. Instead, you sat back down and tried to forget about all of it. You tried to think of nothing but the sun on your skin, Seth in front of you, a hundred boats sailing slowly away.


End file.
